“We want to make sure that nurses, have opportunities both in our local communities as well as international communities, to engage in courageous dialog with others who may think or look different than we do and whose culture or language may also be different. The difference is what brings us together and allows us to have more of this tapestry of what we are about—ensuring that we advance health for all and that we are able to move forward together,” ONS member Ashley Leak-Bryant, PhD, RN, OCN®, professor at University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, told Darcy Burbage, DNP, RN, AOCN®, CBCN®, chair of the ONS 50th Anniversary Committee, during a conversation about international collaboration in oncology nursing. Burbage spoke with Leak-Bryant, ONS member Kristin Ferguson, DNP, MBA, RN, OCN®, senior director of strategic operations, bone marrow transplant, and cellular therapies at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, and ONS member and Chief Clinical Officer Erica Fischer-Cartlidge, DNP, RN, AOCNS®, EBP-C, about their experiences working in the global oncology space and how ONS is advancing those efforts.

Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod

Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0

Episode Notes

Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing articles:

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Highlights From This Episode

Leak-Bryant: “My first experience was when I was 21 years old. This was when I was in nursing school at UNC Greensboro. An opportunity came about where I had a chance to go to Honduras, and it was for a one-week service learning cultural immersion experience. And that really gave me my first entree into global health as well as global training. And so, as a first-generation college graduate who had never been out of North Carolina nor had ever flown, it was really an eye-opening experience that has led me now to my current role and passion for global health.” TS 3:24

Leak-Bryant: “In 2018, we had the Malawian delegation come to UNC Chapel Hill. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has one of the longest standing collaborations with Malawi, and we call it UNC Project Malawi, and it has been in existence for more than 30 years. … Those nurses and other allied health professionals came to UNC to our cancer center to see how we were making sure that we were engaged in best practices, then how they would be able to take that back to Malawi to make sure that they have what they need as they were opening up a new national cancer Center in Malawi.” TS 7:57

Ferguson: “I have volunteered with ONS at the Asian Pacific Breast Cancer Summit, which was in Indonesia in 2024, and then a few months ago in Singapore. And this is an exciting...